Visiting Médoc, France: Where Vines Outnumber Visitors

The big Bordeaux of the Médoc may dominate many high-end wine lists, but the region itself—a peninsula on the Atlantic where vines outnumber visitors—has remained undiscovered by travelers. It took a digital phenom blogging about her analog life there to bring one of France’s last frontiers into the spotlight. Gisela Williams pays a visit.

For years, Mimi and Oddur Thorisson, a couple who were then in their mid-30s and living in Paris with three children and four terriers, fantasized about leaving the urban life of cramped apartments and crowded streets behind. “We’d vacation in a beautiful old stone house in the Tuscan countryside, go shopping at a different market every day, and think to ourselves, ‘Why can’t we live this way every day, instead of just on vacation?’ ” says Oddur, a photographer and former creative director who is originally from Iceland.

It’s the kind of back-to-the-land, drop-out dream harbored by many young city dwellers, though few actually make good on it. For the Thorissons, it was the terriers that finally forced their hand. “We needed more space for the dogs, so I started checking out country properties online,” Oddur recalls. Mimi, then working as a TV executive, liked the idea of Normandy because it’s not so far from Paris but couldn’t find the right house that fit their budget. “When I widened my search,” she says, “I came across a perfect old stone farmhouse in the Médoc.”

Mimi initially rejected the idea of moving somewhere so remote—the Médoc is north of Bordeaux, a six-hour drive from Paris. Neither she nor Oddur had ever been to the region, a 50-mile-long, largely agricultural peninsula bordered on the east by the Gironde estuary and on the west by massive pine forests and the Atlantic. The Médoc is home to some of the most prestigious wine villages (Pauillac, Margaux, St-Julien, and St-Estèphe), whose châteaux—among them Margaux, Mouton, Lafite, and Latour—produce some of the world’s most expensive wines. “At first I clung to my city roots,” says Mimi, who had lived in Hong Kong and London prior to living in Paris, “but then I started thinking, ‘Wasn’t this always your dream?’ Raising the kids in the wild, having space and freedom? It was always in me, but I needed a push.” A week later, she woke up, turned to Oddur, and said, “Let’s do it.”

In the fall of 2010, they left Paris with all their dogs, children, and possessions and arrived six hours later at their rental farmhouse on a one-track road in the middle of a forest. The nearest village, Vendays-Montalivet, was about a seven-minute drive away. They knew no one. “Our first night in this house, we had lamb chops and a bottle of local wine,” Mimi recalls. “I looked out the front door and saw this huge bush of rosemary. I picked a sprig and added it to our meal—it was a little thing, really, but it set the tone for our new life here.” Hardly a week goes by, Oddur says, that “we don’t see 50 wild deer, foxes, a parade of wild boar. It’s really one of France’s last wild regions; it’s still relatively unknown.” Two years later, it was this very wildness and remoteness that provided Mimi with the spark to start blogging about her life in the region.

I came to the Médoc to see for myself the lifestyle Mimi portrays on Manger—her gorgeous blog that chronicles her family’s life largely through the seasonal foods that come from the farms, forests, and waters surrounding her home. And, at Mimi and Oddur’s insistence, I stayed with them and their entire family (which has now swelled to seven children and 15 dogs).

Mimi and two of her and Oddur’s children
in front of their new home—and soon-to-be restaurant.

The antiques store Côte Gironde, in St-Christoly de Médoc.

Monsieur Fleur, a Médocan garlic farmer in Uch.

A vintage car near the waterfront in Pauillac.

Boules at Château Tour Haut Caussan.

Château Pichon-Longueville in Pauillac.

An empty beach north of Le Pin Sec.

Goods on display at Côté Gironde, an antiques shop in St-Christoly.

Château Tour Haut Caussan, a Médoc winery, has been in the Courrian family since 1877.

Foie gras with onion-and-pear chutney from Château Ormes de Pez.

Mimi and Oddur’s daughter Louise eating cotton candy on the beach in Soulac-sur-Mer.

Pastries in Soulac-sur-Mer.

Fabien Courrian, one of the owners of Château Tour Haut Caussan.

Shrimp from Verdon-sur-Mer.

A patriotically painted Citroen parked at the Château Cordeillan-Bages, in the wine village of Pauillac.

A butcher in Soulac-sur-Mer.

A table at Café Lavinal, in Pauillac, filled with wine from the local Château Lynch-Bages.

Before arriving, I imagined that Manger couldn’t possibly be real. Mimi’s blog posts read as if she’s retelling a fable, one filled with afternoon family sojourns in mazelike fields of head-high sunflowers, visits to a grizzled old garlic farmer, decadent family meals of foie gras and figs, of cassoulet and crêpes—all accompanied by Oddur’s saturated, poetic photographs. But then I walked through the door of their old stone farmhouse and into the kitchen, with its charmingly mismatched furniture, stocked open shelves, and huge wooden dinner table arranged, as if it were a Rembrandt still life, with fruit, candlesticks, and vintage china, and it struck me that this “fantasy” I’d pictured just might be real.

The undone perfection and chic bedlam of a farmhouse brimming with kids, dogs, and amazing food is one thing that keeps cooks and daydreamers logging on and tuning in. But Mimi credits the success of her blog—as well as her French TV show, La Table de Mimi, and her new cookbook, A Kitchen in France: A Year of Cooking in My Farmhouse, due out this fall—to the nostalgic appeal of the Médoc itself. “The landscape here is pristine,” she says. “Miles of wind-swept beaches, wild forests, old crumbling villages, acres of vineyards and orchards, and fields of wildflowers. It’s like the setting of a play.”

Exploring the relatively under-documented region fuels not only Mimi’s blog and TV show but also the joy of living—or for that matter visiting— here. So on my second morning, Mimi scooped up her newest addition, Audrey May, and grabbed a Baby Bjorn and a basket, and we set off with Oddur toward the northern tip of the Médoc peninsula, to see their favorite baker, in the historic seaside village of Soulac-sur-Mer. The area’s narrow streets are lined with nineteenth-century gingerbread houses, the wide beach empty except for a cluster of old-fashioned blue-and-white-striped cabanas. When we arrived at the small boulangerie, Le Fournil de J&J, there was already a line out the door. The croissants, still hot from the oven, were well worth the 15-minute wait. As Mimi bit into hers, flaky crumbs fell onto the head of Audrey, who was asleep in the Baby Bjorn. “You can always tell what I’m eating by the crumbs on my baby’s head,” she joked as she brushed them out of her daughter’s hair. Next stop: the nearby municipal market, where the couple greeted vendors by name and bought some fresh mussels, foie gras, and flowers.

Monsieur Fleur, a Médocan garlic farmer in Uch

Back in the car, we drove deep into the wine region of the Haut-Médoc and a tiny hamlet called Bages, on the outskirts of the village of Pauillac. Most of the drive was through wild forest broken only by several quiet rural villages, but then the landscape opened up: Leafy green vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see, one seamlessly growing into the next, interrupted only by the occasional grand estate.

In the history of European grape growing and wine production, the Médoc is a relative newcomer. The area was salt marsh until the seventeenth century, when Dutch merchants—looking to provide the British wine market with cheap alternatives—began an ambitious drainage project to convert it to usable vineyards (hence the dearth of medieval castles and villages—which are abundant in older wine regions like Burgundy or the Rhine). And while serious oenophiles have for years come to the Médoc (more fine vintages are produced per acre in the Haut-Médoc than anywhere else in the world), it’s only recently that the area has begun to attract a greater variety of tourists, many of them Europeans who read Mimi’s blog or watch her TV show.

“It’s quite unusual,” Oddur told me. “People know the wines—some of the most famous in the world—but they don’t know the land.” We had just pulled into Bages, a charming square of one-story stone buildings containing a bakery, an award-winning butcher shop, a wine and culinary boutique, and Mimi and Oddur’s go-to bistro, Café Lavinal. A decade ago, this same village was largely abandoned. In the late 2000s, it was resurrected by Médoc trailblazer Jean-Michel Cazes, owner of the nearby Château Lynch-Bages and several other estates, including Château Ormes de Pez and Château Cordeillan-Bages, a Relais & Châteaux inn with a two-Michelin-star restaurant.

Monsieur Cazes, a dapper, gregarious man in his late 70s, was waiting for Mimi and Oddur at a table outside the café. Although he turned the running of the estates over to his son a few years ago, he is still very much the unofficial mayor of the area. “My father and I sit here all day, greeting people and watching the action,” joked Kinou, his daughter, who runs the boutique. She gave full credit to Mimi’s blog for attracting a new generation of travelers. “For many years, the region was going downhill, but once Mimi moved here and started her blog, interest went way up.”

Château Tour Haut Caussan, a Médoc winery, has been in the Courrian family since 1877

Cazes ordered a bottle of Champagne to celebrate Mimi and Oddur’s news that a stone villa which they had fallen in love with was finally theirs. The L-shaped two-story property—in the quiet village of St-Yzans, about a 15-minute drive from Bages—was once part of a larger château. Oddur had been immediately taken with the villa’s many rooms, the elaborate patterned wallpaper, the unusual hexagon-shaped kitchen cabinets, and the beautiful patina on the floor tiles. “I felt it was ours the moment I walked into the house,” adds Mimi. In a bit of happy synchronicity, she later learned that the villa had been owned by a woman named Plantia, who was famous in the area for her looks, a penchant for black dresses, and her cooking. “The house reminds me of something out of an Isabel Allende novel,” she says.

They will renovate the interiors over the next several months. By summer, they hope to open a pop-up restaurant on the ground floor, where Mimi will cook for guests. She will also host culinary workshops for small groups, shopping with them at the markets, cooking together, and sending the visitors off on bike trips and wine adventures. “Our goal is to come together with other locals to bring life back to the villages of the Médoc,” Mimi says.

If they miss anything from their past life in Paris, it’s date nights at restaurants like Chez L’ami Jean and L’Arpège. But that’s nothing compared with the joy of country life. “Moving here has given me a sense of emancipation,” Oddur says. “I used to care more about material things. Now my luxuries come from the market or a farm. I think a lot of people lose sight of their dreams. Mimi and I have the same goal: to grow old together and to have all the people we love sitting around our table.”